Make Allies, Not Kill Lists

Viewers of Thursday's confirmation hearing
of Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel can be forgiven for thinking
they were watching a years-old C-SPAN rerun. The importance of America's
intercontinental ballistic missiles dominated initial questioning. Then
the war in Iraq was debated. In the end, the issue that most concerned
senators from both parties was Hagel's loyalty to Israel.

During an eight-hour hearing, the difficult decisions that the U.S.
military now faces received scant attention. Vast budget cuts loom.
Suicide and post-traumatic stress disorder rates are appallingly high.
Diverse security threats ranging from Iran to cyber-attacks to al Qaeda
in North Africa must be countered.

Overall, a more nimble, modern and smaller American military is
needed, but you heard little of that in Thursday's marathon hearing.

The senators would have benefited from a conversation with a retired
American Green Beret whom I interviewed earlier this week. After serving
in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and Mali, he has a unique view on the
strengths -- and limits -- of U.S. military power. His advice was simple.
Long-term training of foreign military forces is more effective and
less costly than deploying large numbers of American ground forces.

"It's the cheapest and the best solution in the long term," he told me.

Failures, of course, happen. Seth Jones, an analyst at the RAND
Corporation, points out that billions of dollars have been spent on a
largely failed effort to create a professional police force in
Afghanistan. Peter Singer, an expert at the Brookings Institution,
correctly argues that the key issue is our relationship with foreign
governments, not how much military training we provide.

"We need to move beyond the assumption," Singer said in an email.
"that training someone in our system somehow creates any perfect
alignment between our geostrategic interests and their local political
interests. It wasn't true during the Cold War and isn't true today."

I agree. But as Congress debates harsh Pentagon cuts, it is important to look at new forms of military power. In a December article in Foreign Affairs,
journalist Linda Robinson described Washington's unprecedented reliance
on Special Operations Forces. As identifying, locating and attacking
suspected terrorists and insurgents has grown, U.S. Special Operations
budgets have soared from $2.3 billion in 2001 to $10.5 billion in 2012.
The number of Special Operations Forces fielded by the U.S. is 63,000 and rising.

Robinson argues that American policymakers have become too reliant on
"kill and capture" raids and drone strikes known as "direct action."
She said there is a "misperception" in Washington that pinpoint attacks
"avoid prolonged, messy wars."

"In fact, raids and drone strikes are tactics that are rarely
decisive and often incur significant political and diplomatic costs for
the United States," Robinson wrote. "...special operations leaders readily admit that they should not be the central pillar of U.S. military strategy."

Robinson called for more training of local forces, known in military
parlance as "indirect action." She cited long-term Special Operations
Forces training missions in the Philippines and Colombia as success
stories. In 2001, American Special Forces began training the Filipino
soldiers who targeted the Abu Sayyaf militant group. American soldiers
were barred from engaging in combat, but they played a central role in a
raid that freed some kidnap victims and killed the group's leader.

Fifteen years after the Clinton administration launched its $7.5
billion "Plan Colombia," the effort has helped Bogota weaken the
country's FARC guerrillas, who have forsworn kidnapping, released many
prisoners and begun peace talks. Violence is down and cocaine production
has dropped by 72 percent since 2001, according to Robinson. Today,
Colombian commandos trained by U.S. forces are training
counter-narcotics units in Central American and Mexico.

Some American training efforts, though, have gone badly wrong. Last year, Human Rights Watch issued a detailed report
documenting systematic abuses of pro-democracy activists in Yemen by
local security forces, some of whom had received U.S. training. The
International Federation for Human Rights reported
last week that soldiers from the Malian Army - which also received U.S.
training - had executed at least 11 people in Sevare after retaking the
town from Islamists forces.

More broadly, an American-trained Malian army captain carried out a coup last year
that destabilized the country and opened the door for Islamists to gain
control of the north. Skepticism of the Malian army's ability to gain
public confidence or simply become an effective fighting force against
militants is rampant.

The former Green Beret, who spent extensive time in Mali training
local soldiers, said the training effort was too limited. He said U.S.
Green Berets on average trained Malian units for six-week sessions. High
turnover in the Malian units and lack of basic items for soldiers --
from vehicles to weapons to food -- made progress difficult.

In
neighboring Chad, American Special Operations Forces lived with Chadian
military units for six-month periods and achieved better results.

"You need that 365, 24-hour-a day presence if you want to make a difference," he said.

Robinson agreed in an email, arguing that the training was "episodic" in Mali. I agree with Robinson and the retired soldier, to an extent.

Training by U.S. Special Forces is not a cure-all. Unless local
governments share American strategic goals and political values,
training their forces is a waste of time and resources.

So was Thursday's Senate hearing. The United States faces serious
questions about how, where and whether to wage war. The senators
performed poorly. So did Hagel.

As the U.S. military shrinks, its training capacity is more important
than its ICBM arsenal. The fact that more U.S. soldiers committed
suicide than died in combat last year is more important than
re-litigating Iraq. While Israel is an important ally, the United States
needs allies across the Middle East to counter a reduced but still real
terrorist threat.

Technology is not a replacement for a committed ally. Investing in allies will lead them to invest in us.